Kevin Duffy: Some type of history will be made at Fenway

Updated 12:30 am, Wednesday, October 30, 2013

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: Junichi Tazawa #36 of the Boston Red Sox warms up during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: Junichi Tazawa #36 of the Boston Red Sox warms up during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Photo: Jared Wickerham, Getty Images

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BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: Quintin Berry #50 of the Boston Red Sox warms up in front of the Green Monster with teammate Mike Carp #37 of the Boston Red Sox during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. less

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: Quintin Berry #50 of the Boston Red Sox warms up in front of the Green Monster with teammate Mike Carp #37 of the Boston Red Sox during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, ... more

Photo: Jared Wickerham, Getty Images

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BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: Game six starter, John Lackey #41 of the Boston Red Sox, talks during a press conference prior to the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: Game six starter, John Lackey #41 of the Boston Red Sox, talks during a press conference prior to the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Photo: Jared Wickerham, Getty Images

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BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: David Ortiz #34 of the Boston Red Sox warms up during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: David Ortiz #34 of the Boston Red Sox warms up during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Photo: Jared Wickerham, Getty Images

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BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: David Ortiz #34 of the Boston Red Sox warms up during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

BOSTON, MA - OCTOBER 29: David Ortiz #34 of the Boston Red Sox warms up during the team workout at Fenway Park on October 29, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Photo: Jared Wickerham, Getty Images

Kevin Duffy: Some type of history will be made at Fenway

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BOSTON -- The history of Fenway Park lines the brick wall between Gates B and D. There, you'll see a collection of world championship plaques followed by banners bearing the names of past Red Sox greats like Carl Yastrzemski, Carlton Fisk and Babe Ruth.

Win, and the city of Boston witnesses a world championship clincher for the first time since Ruth played here.

"There might be a time in the future, once this season is finished, that you look back and say, `You know what? That was a pretty action-packed 13 months,'" Red Sox manager John Farrell said Tuesday. "I'm not letting myself do that right now."

The Red Sox have two shots at clinching history, at winning the most improbable of their 21st century world titles at their home ballpark. Yes, the streets of Boston were wild in 2004 and 2007 (the YouTube videos exist to prove it), but a Game 6 or 7 victory would make for a truly epic scene on Yawkey Way.

At press time, Game 6 tickets on Stubhub were going for $983.75. As one reporter jokingly phrased it, the tickets for Wednesday night are "the most expensive tickets in the history of tickets."

"From a historic perspective, when you consider that an event like this hasn't been here in a couple of generations," Farrell said, "there's a lot of people that are willing to take some extra cash and try to be a part of it."

History says the Red Sox will indeed clinch a historic championship at the end of this exhilarating, grueling World Series. Boston won Game 1, and 21 of the last 25 World Series have ended with celebrations from the Game 1 winner. Boston also won Game 5, and rarely ever does a team blow a 3-2 World Series lead at home.

In the long history of 3-2, you must go back to 1979 to find such a scenario: Baltimore needed one win to clinch, but lost to Pittsburgh on back-to-back nights at Memorial Stadium. Since, we've seen 3-2 in the World Series on 13 occasions. The team coming back home for Games 6 and 7 won the series 11 times (Atlanta trailed 3-2 and lost Game 6 at home in 1992, and ditto for the Yankees in 1981).

So, that's what the stats say, for what it's worth. A Boston parade is what the experts are predicting, too. Then again, in the preseason, the experts pegged the Sox for fourth place in their division.

"These days, the word `expert' gets thrown out way too much, first of all," said John Lackey, the Game 6 starter.

Lackey was his usual self Tuesday, unwilling to reflect on an already-insane 2013 season or go into much detail about his Game 7 World Series victory in 2002, his rookie year.

"That was a long time ago, man," Lackey said.

"We had a pretty veteran team," he continued. "I was just trying to -- our bullpen was probably our main strength on that team. I was just trying to get five or six innings and turn it over to those guys. My job was just basically not to screw it up."

Lackey, 23 years old at the time, allowed one earned run in five innings against San Francisco, letting the veteran bullpen of Brendan Donnelly, Francisco Rodríguez and Troy Percival close it out. For tonight's Game 6, the Cardinals throw Michael Wacha, 22 years old and rolling.

And he can't just avoid screwing it up. He'll need to keep the Sox lineup in check like he did in Game 2, surrendering just three hits and two runs in six relatively dominant innings. He'll need to avoid a miscue, like the 85-mile-an-hour changeup he left over the outside corner for David Ortiz last week.

If we're going to talk history, we have to talk Ortiz, who is now 11-for-15 with two homers and six RBI in this World Series. It's a historic postseason run, for sure, and one of the most prolific stretches in Ortiz's storied career. It seems he catches fire like this once per year: Recently, it was a 10-for-14 streak in early August, a 9-for-13 stretch in April 2012, and a 10-for-16 showing in Aug. 2011.

It's crazy that he's doing it now in the World Series. It might be crazier that the Cardinals continue to pitch at him.

These days, it seems like anything is possible for Big Papi. He's slugging home runs at absolutely crucial times. He beat out a throw to first on an infield single Monday. He fielded well, too. After Monday's 3-for-4 performance at Busch Stadium, he could have walked next door to the Edward Jones Dome and punched in a goal-line touchdown for the Rams (which would have slightly alleviated a dreadful sports night in St. Louis).

Honestly, Ortiz has been that good. And it makes you wonder if the Cards will finally give him the same treatment Lackey and the Angels gave Barry Bonds during his 7-for-18, four-homer World Series in 2002. They let him have first base 13 times.

"We walked Barry a lot more than David has been walked," Lackey said. "I think that speaks to the guys we've got hitting behind David. We've got some good players. I remember a couple of times in '02 intentionally walking Barry, and on the first pitch Benito (Santiago) hooked me up with a couple of ground balls for double-play balls. Those were pretty big."

After Lackey and the Sox finished their workout Tuesday, Yawkey Way was quiet. Stores were closed. Bars weren't crowded. The Cardinals were still on the runway in St. Louis, grounded for six hours by mechanical issues. They reportedly got a new plane just before 9 p.m.

They'll arrive soon enough, facing that historically doomed, 3-2 road deficit. Soon enough, some type of history will be made at Fenway.